Do It Yurtself - <AUTHOR> https://imgur.com/t/staff_picks/VemXvh0 <comment><USER2> Some terrible, hyper-critical comments so far. A 3d-printed concrete cube with a fridge full of Soylent would be vastly more efficient for productive techies. Can't we just admit that this is an incredibly creative hybrid of old & new. The end result is breathtaking.

<comment><USER3> But the problem is this is not DIY, it's professional work, the word is being abused for some purpose.

> He has a do it yurtself website w/ all the fancy content, presumably he's > planning on selling that.

Not surprised

<comment><USER4> I don't think it's being abused at all. If you have the time, finances, and willingness to learn how to do it, you can DIY. I think the same goes for most DIY projects.

The guy who put together this yurt is also the same guy who converted a van to a camper van (link was on Hacker News a while back: [http://thevanual.com/](http://thevanual.com/)). I recall he had next-to- nothing in construction experience.

<comment><USER5> Complete with insulation instructions that will cause mold growth.

<comment><USER6> Ah yes! That insulation! I definitely learned my lesson afterwards from the s __*storm that ensued. Maybe there will be a vanual 2.0 in the future that resolves these issues, but at the very least, Id like to make some edits to correct that info on the current site.

<comment><USER5> You should look into that. You definitely present that site like "i know what I'm doing and this is good information."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I'm more curious about the state of that yurt in 5, 10, 15 years. Heating, humidity, insulation, energy bill, insects, hygiene, maintaining the toilet and the hygiene issues that come with it.

Building codes don't exist without good reasons. Health and comfort don't happen by snapping finger at good ideas. I would really be interesting if construction engineers seriously studied yurts.

I have to say this looks pretty nice and it's pretty cheap, but humans did not start building with hard materials without good reasons. Even without fossil energy, humans still started to use stone, cement, etc.

I guess brick has a very long lifespan, it's worth the time spent, but I don't know if it's cheap.

<comment><USER8> Absolutely, I have done no research on this but on his website [1] he claims:

> Strength: The fundamental principles of a yurt's design creates a structure > that is surprisingly strong. The compression and tension of the walls and > roof can hold thousands of pounds of weight from the snow. The round shape > allows high winds to be diverted gracefully around the structure. Unlike a > normal house, a yurt doesn't rely on rigidity to be stable. Because of its > flexible nature, a yurt can better withstand natural disasters like > earthquakes.

So maybe it's true and they are actually sturdier than it seems?

[1] [https://doityurtself.com/is-it-for-you/](https://doityurtself.com/is-it- for-you/) (scroll down to "The positives of yurts")

<comment><USER9> I think from a structural engineering perspective, yurts are strong for their weight/materials but most construction failures don't involve a structure falling, it's matrierials/joint failure from water/UV exposure and penetrations. Yurts were developed to be semi-permanent structures for nomadic peoples. I would not expect them to last more than 15-20 years because of the toll the water and sun will take on their "cheap" materials and simple construction methods.

<comment><USER6> You're not wrong per se, but the polyvinyl fabric roof or wall on a yurt can be replaced in a matter of hours for a relatively reasonable price. If you have to do that every 15 years, I think you're doing pretty well.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Wow, imgur has really ramped up the ads and user hostile UX, I wonder if they are going broke.

<comment><USER11> It's especially ironic taking into account how imgur came to be: as a simple image hosting website for reddit without ads/fluff. Now it's the polar opposite.

<comment><USER12> Still, Imgur is vastly superior to the old image hosting sites. Even though the redirects and low resolution images on mobile are annoying.

They serve _a lot_ of traffic, and the bandwidth expenses are probably quite big.

<comment><USER13> I also find it much faster than Reddit's own image/video hosting.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Looks a bit more optimized for Instagram aesthetics than being practical [1]. It seems like it would get pretty warm in there especially with the bed being at the highest point of the whole yurt.

[1] [https://www.instagram.com/youdidnotsleepthere](https://www.instagram.com/youdidnotsleepthere)

</comment><comment><USER15> How does the construction industry work in the US? Do many people DIY? Do many people get hands-on with building homes while still hiring experts where needed? Is it common for city people to own farms/land nearby?

It seems it isn't really that costly to build a nice 1000 sq. ft. place complete with appliances and modern amenities.

The construction industry in India is shitty - carpenters, painters, plumbers, masons, general contractors have little to no professional training and eff up projects often, the tools aren't modern and renovation work is infrequent because of the poor quality of construction services (and non-existent DIY culture and ecosystem). Also, it's probably looked down upon in the Indian society if a house owner goes DIY with any construction work (gardening is an exception).

<comment><USER16> In more rural areas, you can still build your own home without a huge amount of paperwork and certification. As someone else mentioned, if your funding hasn't got strings attached you're even more free. Of course there's always the "forgiveness is easier than permission," factor too, but that only works if you're "somebody" to the authorities you hope to be forgiving you.

I built my house from 2003 to 2005 in rural TN with only a couple of permits needed (electrician, one for the well, one for the septic system) and no special laws about what contractors i could employ. This was self-funded, self labor, etc etc as much as possible; and probably about the most benign location for the effort in the entire USA.

<comment><USER17> I live in a city of ~200k (Grand Rapids, MI). We need a few more permits than you (structural plans, foundation...), but there's nothing prohibiting DIY work. I've found the building department to be fairly DIY-friendly.

<comment><USER18> Ha. A family member built a ~2,500sq ft, 3 stall garage home near the beltline a few years back with the help of my other family members. One of them had a contractor's license (I think primarily for the discount and credit line at Menards - they never worked as a contractor) but GR was very amenable to self built homes. Just needed the normal inspections (foundation, electrical, plumbing) and it went smoothly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> If you want to read about the drawbacks, they're explained here:

[https://doityurtself.com/is-it-for-you/](https://doityurtself.com/is-it-for- you/)

<comment><USER20> With this particular project the con list also includes a compost toilet and the need to climb up and down the ladder to get to your bed. It's OK for few days, but I can see it getting very tiring really quickly.

<comment><USER21> I don't know about the compost toilet, but I climbed up and down a loft bed during college for years, it didn't bother me in the slightest.

Of course, that was decades ago...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Looks great! For anyone who wondered like me whether the top hole can be closed, it is a closed clear dome[1].

[1]: [https://i.imgur.com/JwAMOsG.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/JwAMOsG.jpg)

</comment><comment><USER23> This looks really incredible! While I see a lot of cynicism in the comments I think this is a really neat project and would love to live in something like this. I love how remote work and self employment let arrangements like this be a viable way to live.

</comment><comment><USER24> They had one of these (Sukup Safe-T-Home)[1] at my hometown county fair this year and it seemed like a very interesting take on the yurt. It's basically a grain bin that they've modified slightly to work as a shelter.

Definitely spent a few minutes fantasizing about having one of these as a cabin in the woods someplace.

[1] [http://www.safethome.com/Safethome](http://www.safethome.com/Safethome)

<comment><USER25> Looks pretty rugged. Cost is roughly 7k.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Hey, this is the same guy who did that camper van conversion a couple of years ago!

[http://thevanual.com/](http://thevanual.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15757206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15757206)

</comment><comment><USER26> Is this Portland Oregon or Portland Maine? I thought it was Portland Oregon, but then they mentioned the footings were 12 inches below the frost line, and there basically is no front line in Portland Oregon since the winters are too warm and rainy. But I assume there is a frost line in Portland Maine.

<comment><USER27> The exterior shots look way more like Oregon than Maine. And Portland OR government regulations list the frost line as 18".

<comment><USER26> That's crazy. In the 2 decades I've lived in Portland, I've never seen more than the top inch or two freeze, and that's typically only for a few days to a week when a real cold snap sets in. Then it starts raining again and quickly thaws out. I can't imagine it has been cold enough for long enough to freeze down to 18" since the last ice age.

<comment><USER28> 1996.

[https://www.oregonlive.com/weather/2014/11/notable_winter_st...](https://www.oregonlive.com/weather/2014/11/notable_winter_storms_in_orego.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> This is Zach. The guy that built the yurt and the website. Just found out this was posted here! Thanks for checking it out. I'll try to add my two cents and answer some of the questions. Im away from my computer so I might be a little slow!

<comment><USER29> How much did the whole project cost?

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This reminded me of a more traditional (but focussed on efficiency) 100% self- build (and design) that I've been following for a while, but since the last infrequent update I seem to have lost it.

I don't suppose that's familiar to anyone else? I expect I saw it on HN in the first place, the URL was something focussed on the efficiency/climate aspect, though most of the content (and to be honest what I was interested in!) was just generally applicable how-to/DIY for each step.

Edit: Ah! I found it: [https://www.savingsustainably.com](https://www.savingsustainably.com) (I wasn't quite right above, I suppose perhaps the efficiency goal is a product of 'FIRE' rather than climate concern). And some more update since I last caught up with it, excellent.

</comment><comment><USER31> Holy...128 80lb bags. I poured a single footing in my backyard with a 4-5 of the light 20lb bags and said, never again.

<comment><USER32> No idea why they didn't have conrete pumped. Probably would have been cheaper

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> How do you stay warm in the winter? The drafts must be intense.

<comment><USER34> The photos of the wood stove may be a clue.

<comment><USER35> As far as i can see there's zero insulation and basically no thermal mass to buffer the heat. They're going to need to keep a fire going 24/7.

<comment><USER36> I spent a few nights in a yurt in Mongolia. You are correct. Our fire went out at about 4 am one night and I very quickly got cold enough that I wondered for a bit if I was going to die (spoiler: it was fine).

<comment><USER37> I had the identical experience - so cold! The smell of those horse dung stoves are amazing.

However, the most memorable thing arriving in Ulan Bator was seeing two different yurts on fire. Fabric buildings containing wood (dung) burning stoves and chimneys have not looked tempting since.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> I wonder if, since this roof shape can bear a heavy load, the insulation problem could be solved with rooftop plants? In some countries the government subsidizes you putting flowers on your roof, to make the cities greener. (In some parts of the city, bees have to travel way too far to find a flower, and run out of energy.) Now this yurt is way out of town, but they do seem to really like plants!

</comment><comment><USER39> What are the advantages of a yurt over a pole barn or mobile/manufactured home?

</comment><comment><USER40> Curious as to why Pacific Yurts didn't make the yurt companies page.

[https://doityurtself.com/choosing-a-yurt- company/](https://doityurtself.com/choosing-a-yurt-company/)

if you've ever stayed in an Oregon State Parks Yurt they were built by [https://www.yurts.com/](https://www.yurts.com/)

<comment><USER6> Pacific Yurts is the only company that declined to complete the company questionnaire that I created. Maybe if enough people email them, they'll change their mind :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> Yurts can be insulated and have wood walls, windows, rafters, and metal roofing:

[https://www.smilingwoodsyurts.com](https://www.smilingwoodsyurts.com)

From their FAQ:

"Homes built with our products are permanent and comfortable for full-time all-season living in nearly every climate. They are built with durable building materials to stand for generations; a fabric yurt is basically a really nice tent. A SWY will meet and exceed the most current international Residential Building codes and can be insulated to industry standards for energy-efficiency using proven R-value products, a fabric yurt will not. We have insulated glass windows whereas fabric yurts have vinyl windows that open from the outside. SWY homes can be secured, fully-insured, and generally qualify for conventional financing under most circumstances through a third- party. Please note: Smiling Woods Yurts does not offer any financing on our products."

Some yurts are tents, some are more substantial.

</comment><comment><USER42> I got lost somewhere there. How much all this cost him?

<comment><USER43> Happen to have the answer in my clipboard buffer: "Our yurt came in around $65k which included all the building materials, furniture and appliances."

</comment></comment><comment> jay-anderson The 'Living Big In A Tiny House' youtube channel put up a video of this yurt today: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05NYU3kmFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05NYU3kmFs).

</comment><comment><USER44> Is it just me, or are yurts currently popular just because they have a funny sounding name?

</comment><comment><USER45> Having lived in a van for the past year, building a yurt is my next plan. Probably once I'm back in Australia.

I've looked into earthships, bagged houses, abodo, containers, small houses and other DIY methods.

These yurts seems like the right balance between cost, DIY capability and results.

Particularly this loft design, which I've seen on some NZ YouTube videos.

My plan, a yurt on land approximately 2 - 3 hours from Melbourne, plus a sprinter van or troopy. And I'll buy a private parking space in Melbourne, for when I want to weekend / overnight in town.

Zero mortgage. Fuck your house prices, keep em.

</comment><comment><USER46> This is pretty cool and looks great. It has a lot of themselves in it which I think will make it a cherished place.

If anybody wants to see how a traditional Yurt/Ger is put up, you should watch this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLO-z- XJ7_U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FLO-z-XJ7_U)

It's quite different in some respects and the main difference is that the load is shared between the lattice walls and an interior post structure as well as the heating being centralized under the oculus.

</comment><comment><USER47> The Photo of the bedroom strikes me the most. You filled in your sleeping Room with plants that Will release CO2 at night as any other plant would do.

</comment><comment><USER48> I'm always intrigued by the way Americans build the foundation. I've seen it before, seems to be rather standard. Concrete pillars, OK, but then it's raised on wood and the whole house is placed on it? I can see some benefits but it doesn't seem good for the long term.

Around here we pour the whole thing on the ground, with rocks and concrete, the whole ground is covered, then the house is built on that.

<comment><USER49> That foundation isn't really standard. At least for houses. More typical are.

Footing and stem wall construction. Basically a perimeter concrete wall with a treated lumber mud sill. Fairly common for wood framed houses. Advantage is you can get under it to repair electrical, plumbing, and heating vents. Disadvantage : You probably don't want to if you hate small spaces and spiders.

Slab foundations on grade. Probably more common in newer construction. Cheap. Disadvantage: Sadness when you realize a leaking water pipe has created a spring in the middle of the living room floor.

And there are basement foundations. Common in areas where the ground freezes. Basements are either concrete or cinder block.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> That's pretty neat, I was hoping for a Mongolian style Yurt. But this is a nice take on a modern Yurt.

</comment><comment><USER51> I love DIY homes but, in the negatives it lists...

> Poor temperature control, noise level, and not so temporary

I'm wondering why you would build a yurt instead of one of the numerous more traditional wood frame green pre-fabs, which would essentially eliminate all of these negatives?

<comment><USER9> My guess is cost would be the biggest factor. Materials and construction methods in a tiny/pre-fab home are on a different level.

<comment><USER51> This yurt cost $65k though. That's easily on the same level as small pre-fabs.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Beautiful build! I haven't seen a yurt with a raised bedroom like that before, very clever.

</comment><comment><USER52> I may have missed but it seems nothing discussed for the amount o plants in the comments.

Is having that many plants around your bed safe? Can they release enough CO2 to effect your sleep quality or is it a myth I remember from my childhood?

<comment><USER53> Release co2, to the air? Wouldn't we expect them to sequester co2 and release oxygen? Or is my mental model of plants maybe to simplistic?

<comment><USER54> It's reversed at night (absence of light).

<comment><USER55> It depends, [CAM succulents]([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crassulacean_acid_metabolism)) do their gas exchange at night, and then close their stomata and do the photosynthesis during the day. It's a dry-climate adaptation, to lose less water in the process of exchanging the previous day's O2 for fresh CO2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Inspiring. Love the thoughtful design touches. My only immediate practical issue would be climbing that ladder in the middle of the night to wee! Regardless, the builder and family should be incredibly proud. Enjoy.

</comment><comment><USER57> I have some concerns. Doesn't seem too resistant to winds. The plants inside the house, specially on the bedroom part, not a good idea. I wonder how good is that house to keep warm on winter and fresh on summer.

</comment><comment><USER58> Video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05NYU3kmFs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f05NYU3kmFs)

I'm such a fan of these tiny homes!

</comment><comment><USER59> What is up with the composting toilet? All these off grid houses you see on YouTube are using composting toilets. It's like these people have never heard of a septic tank before.

<comment><USER60> If you're sincere, it's likely cost and sustainability — it's much cheaper to make a composting toilet than install a septic system; and a composting toilet is environmentally beneficial compared to a septic tank.

Edit: I just noticed that you also specify off grid. That as a foundational principle would lead one to simpler choices. A composting toilet is much simpler than a septic system.

<comment><USER59> If you're stuck with a mobile dwelling, then it's reasonable. If you're permanently siting it, then there's no reason not to simply dig a hole, and put a septic tank in. It's a proven technology, that maintains itself. I grew up with one. My parents' house has had one for 60 years without issue.

You may argue that it is more complex, but almost everything is more complex than defecating into a bag.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> There is reference to the posters taking a week of peace to help out. How much leave is the statutory minimum? Is just one week common?

<comment><USER26> There is no law regarding time off. At my work I get 10 fixed days (christmas, thanksgiving, etc.) + 1 day per pay period - so about 36 business days off a year. However, the days can roll over from year to year and I hardly ever take time off because I enjoy working. I currently could take off about 3 months of paid vacaton. Every 5 years I get a 6 week paid sabbatical.

<comment><USER62> Make sure you check your state laws around paying out acrued leave. You won't feel like it now, but eventually your current job will come to an end and if it's during turbulent times for the company you may find yourself really missing that 6 weeks of pay if they don't pay it out.

I am the same, typically accrue a bunch of leave then when I move to a new job they have to pay it out. But I have been burned before.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> I don't get the fascination with Yurts. It's a tent. People stopped living in tents as soon as they could, because they don't stay cool, don't stay warm, and don't stay dry. They only work well in gentle, temperate climates.

The one advantage to tents is mobility, but Yurts are pretty much permanent tents. They're the worst tent.

If you're a nomadic group in the plains with not much wood around and a herd of animals it makes sense. Build tents with skins, burn the poo for fire.

<comment><USER27> How much house can you build for 65k all in?

<comment><USER64> Doing as much as possible yourself, you're around $80-100/sq ft finished in normally-priced housing areas. Source: my dad's a builder.

<comment><USER15> What about when you hire professionals? $200/sq ft?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> The spiders...

</comment><comment><USER66> I'd be interested to know where this is when they say "20 minutes from downtown".

</comment><comment><USER67> Is it safe to have plants in the bedroom, don't they use up oxygen at night?

<comment><USER68> Where did hear it's not safe to have plants in a bedroom?

<comment><USER69> It's a common Feng Shui belief that plants in the bedroom are bad, which is probably reinforced a bit by the recent uptick in worrying about sleep CO2 levels. If you do a quick Google, you'll find a decent amount of Quora answers and blog posts asking about if it's safe or not, so it seems to be a not- entirely-unheard-of concern.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Amazing job.

Wish the plants were real.

Pic from the glass roof of the starry night is a must.

<comment><USER71> I wonder what is carbon dioxide concentration before sunrise, it must be quite high.

<comment><USER71> This is second time in a row I posted factual, on topic information and I am being downvoted. It is well known fact that oxygen level is lowest just before sunrise [1], [2]. In the first photo there is absolutely ridiculous amount of houseplants for such a small room so obviously CO2 levels before sunrise are concern. What are the numbers? Did they measured it. Few plants are fine but so many plants? I would do the measurement just to be safe.

[1] [https://www.picotech.com/library/results/plant- measurements-...](https://www.picotech.com/library/results/plant-measurements- during-day-and-night) [2] [https://www.quora.com/Is-the-level-of-oxygen- maximum-in-the-...](https://www.quora.com/Is-the-level-of-oxygen-maximum-in- the-morning)

<comment><USER72> Because you're linking measurements to small enclosed containers to try and make a point and it's simply nonsensical.

A small dog will put out significantly more CO2 sleeping beside your bed than all of those plants will. A person even more - if it was a single person, would you caution them against having another person sleep over due to co2 production? What if they were bringing in a third person to spice things up? Or more pets? Friends crashing on the couch downstairs?

We should pay more attention to CO2 levels than we do, especially in offices and particularly enclosed meeting rooms, but plants expire so little co2 in comparison to animals that there's really no reason to worry about them in anything regarding a normal situation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER73> Neat project but no hard hat?

</comment><comment><USER74> Thats so awesome. I love it! I need it! I hate renting.

</comment><comment><USER75> So interesting.but cooling and toilet are major problem

</comment><comment><USER76> Normal house tax structure: $800k land / $400k structure. This: $800k land / $150k structure. What's the point?

<comment><USER77> I guess the point is people like different architectures. They have different opinions of what feels like home. And what's with the $800k land? Maybe in cities.

<comment><USER76> Nope. Seattle area suburbs.

<comment><USER77> Well that sounds like near a big city.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER78> tl;dr: man builds a home out of 30ft yurt, with modern amenities, in the countryside. The post is a photo report.

</comment><comment><USER79> Ted Kaczynski did it before it was cool.

</comment><comment><USER80> This was on /r/DIY earlier this week. I was a heavy critic to say the least.

The post just didn't feel like a genuine DIY project.

\</comment><comment>

OP is a very talented videographer/photographer and it definitely pushed this out of feeling "DIY" for me. I'm glad to see that OP removed some of the forced marketing content to focus purely on the DIY side of this project. I don't really get the whole yurt thing (especially on cost compared to a more traditional route), but it's a neat project.

<comment><USER81> Even though parts of it were kit, it looks like they designed and built a lot of the interior themselves. I wonder if either one took off a sabbatical from work or if they did this all on weekend or after hours.

It's pretty neat and a lot of work, even if not entirely DIY. I mean, at some point you're going to buy pre-made parts. It's not like people grow their own trees, cut them down and cut their own planks. It's not a log cabin.

<comment><USER69> I don't agree with the negative comments, but I do understand them, and I don't think it just has to do with the use of a 'kit'.

A common theme I see on r/DIY is that for a project to be popular with other DIYers, the project itself has to seem like something that can be reasonably accomplished by am average person with only a little bit of help here and there. For example, something like remodeling a bathroom is still a popular DIY project even if you use a 'kit' for stuff like the shower and sink. The big appeal though is that installing new tiles, lighting elements, sinks etc are something that a lot of people can look at and say "yea, I could do that!"

This post, on the other hand, has a very "professional experience required" feel to it. From the use of heavy machinery, to having help from friends who are professional designers and hiring professional electricians, to the professional-grade photography, and even just the scale of the project itself, this definitely doesn't seem like something that an average person could reasonably expect to be able to actually "do it yourself".</comment></comment></comment>


Street View: Google given 35 days to delete wi-fi data - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23002166 <comment> chestnut-tree Very disappointed that Google were not fined by the UK body. Also disappointed that the US authorities fined Google such as paltry figure especially when it found that Google "deliberately impeded and delayed" the US investigation for months. A fine of $25,000 is pocket change to Google.

Inconsequential fines (and even worse, no fines) send the wrong message to companies about the severity of their wrongdoing.</comment>


Robigalia – Rust on top of seL4 - <AUTHOR> https://robigalia.gitlab.io/book/rosme.html <comment><USER2> Not a lot of info at that link. Project overview / documentation is here, that might be better?

[https://robigalia.gitlab.io/book/rosme.html](https://robigalia.gitlab.io/book/rosme.html)

As a meta comment, sprawling projects like this (with lots of sub-projects) just don't seem to be as friendly to navigate on gitlab vs github. gitlab does have a "pages" feature but it's still a lot of work to build something nice with it...

<comment><USER3> Ok, we changed to that link from [https://gitlab.com/robigalia](https://gitlab.com/robigalia). Thanks!</comment></comment>


Ask HN: What is so different between EU and US govt? - <AUTHOR> I only have my own experience and understanding of the world to go by as evidence for this presumption, but I'll ask the question anyways:
What is so different about EU vs US that the EU govt tends to lean toward protecting its citizens and US govt tends to lean toward protecting its corporations?
EDIT:  I'm mostly looking at this not to define the types of government in each region.  I'm more looking at this from the human nature perspective.  Why is one group of people more interested in protecting citizens and the other more interested in protecting corporations?
Obviously neither government is exactly the same now as it was when it was started.  How did one group of people evolve their government to be more interested in protecting people, and the other evolved to be more interested in protecting corporations? <comment><USER2> The US has a president, most EU countries don't have most of the power concentrated in one person! as a side effect, US presidency is winner take all, that forces 2 party system. parliamentary systems don't have that side effect.

Add money contribution system of US to the mix and voila you are going to get the same system no matter where on earth it is located!

</comment><comment><USER3> The United States is a representative republic (e.g. voters get to choose whoever represents them in the House and Senate, their local governments and their President) while the EU as it is today can be best described as a Oligarchy.

Let me explain.

Citizens in the EU can only vote for the European Parlement (EP) which takes place every five years. However, the European Parlement only exists to make it look like citizens have any influence in European politics which is not the case.

The true power of European politics lies within the European Commission (EC) which is NOT elected by the people but are politicians within the EU chosen by politicians within the EU. The EC doubles as both the executive _and_ legislative branch of the EU.

However, Citizens within the EU have no influence on execution or legislation by the EC whatsoever (they would like to pretend that the people do have this influence, because the pretence of "democracy").

Many HN members residing in the US are currently quite angry that they have Donald Trump as their president. But actually they have to be glad, because in about four years his first term has ended and you, as citizens of the US, at least have the ability to choose a better president (if the majority agrees, ofcourse). In Europe, unless European law and government will be seriously reformed, we will never have that opportunity. We are stuck with a unchosen and thus undemocratic legislative and executive branch who have total control over the democratically chosen local leaders and governments.

Still think the EU is so awesome? I hope you will reconsider.

PS: Source being me, I live in the EU and know pretty much all you would ever need to know about local and European politics around these parts.

</comment><comment><USER4> I don't think that such a clear-cut distinction based on motivation or general intent can be made. There are political factions in the US whose goals are quite similar to those of more left-leaning factions in the EU.

In general, you could probably say that the EU is more left-leaning than the US because two of its major powers - France and Germany - tend to be more left-leaning as well as Scandinavian countries, which from a US perspective are sometimes considered almost socialist (though that's not exactly true).

While more left-leaning factions in general seem to favour the rights of the average citizen over those of corporations this isn't unanimously good or a clear distinction either. In some ways, the EU is a good example of the road to hell that's paved with good intentions. Its regulations often are so complex that - intentionally or not - they favour big corporations because they're too difficult to implement for smaller companies. Being an entrepreneur for instance is - very broadly speaking - more difficult and unusual than in the US, simply because employment in a big corporation pretty much is the assumed default model in the EU. Anything that deviates from that is more difficult to accommodate in the existing legal framework.

</comment><comment><USER5> The United States is generally considered to be a free-market hegemony (and has been at the helm of the pecking order since the early 1900s), and the system was set-up (at least when it was originally conceived) in a manner so as to cause minimal Big Government interference in day-to-day affairs of the people and the states of the Union. Freedom is something folks in the United States take very seriously, and this includes freedom to trade and open-up businesses freely, with minimal regulation and taxation -- heck the American Revolution itself was triggered because of tiff over taxation, extending more broadly to tyranny. [0]

Now, contemporary EU on the other hand has a vastly different and divergent history from that of the U.S. and Europeans, generally speaking, aren't as skeptical of their government as Americans are. Also, EU leans more to the left (generally speaking) relative to the United States, most "right-wing" parties in the EU would be considered to be slightly left-of-center if they were based in the U.S. [1]

Now, with that out of the way, to address your question -- both places have vastly different history and the divergent histories has given birth to vastly different cultures, helped by the fact that they're separated by the second- biggest body of water on the planet, making it even harder for inter-culture interaction. Right-leaning countries, like the U.S. for example, generally advocate for more free trade, less regulation and less taxation which is directly antithetical to the core principles of left-leaning countries, like the EU-bloc for example. [2]

[0] [http://www.tep-online.info/laku/usa/rights.htm](http://www.tep- online.info/laku/usa/rights.htm) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_s...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left%E2%80%93right_political_spectrum) [2] [http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways- ameri...](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/19/5-ways-americans- and-europeans-are-different/)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you for the feedback. Interesting info. I definitely think my question was not as precise as I was looking for.

I definitely get the "right leaning" vs "left leaning" dichotomy. I'm wondering more about the human nature element. What's so different about people in EU vs US that one would find more value in protecting citizens and the other would find more value in protecting corporations?

<comment><USER5> Generally speaking, Americans tend to prioritize individual liberty, while Europeans tend to value the role of the state to ensure no one in society is in need, and thus individual liberty by extension extends over to the property the individual owns, like businesses and corporations, for example.

Europeans on the other hand are more 'collectivist' RELATIVE to the United States, which I assert might be due to the bad hangover from earlier empires; U.S. has been a pretty stable Democratic Republic for close to 250 years now.

<comment><AUTHOR> Maybe it's the wrong thing to get from this, but I'm imagining that in this scenario, in the US, one man's property is in most cases more valuable than another man's existence?

<comment><USER6> This is literally expressed in some state laws, search "Castle Doctrine". Stand your ground laws are also somewhat related.

<comment><USER7> And self-defense law in Germany has is much more robust than all those castle doctrine laws.

Here, proportionality of response explicitly doesn't come into the balancing test, only erforderlich (necessary), geeignet (useful) and least forceful method that leads to guaranteed success.

<comment><USER6> What do you mean by robust?

Most US laws related to Castle doctrine pretty much allow the use of maximum force for forced entry. No evaluation of whether lethal force was necessary, no evaluation of whether less force would have sufficed.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I think it goes like that:

-US government is a capitalist one semi-controlled by corporations (corporations control the funds, but the public is the one to vote - thanks to a duopoly, the latter have limited options and the former decides which one to support).

-EU "government" is a social one semi-controlled by social organizations (basically a lobbying body, mostly socialist that can create a short-term momentum to push their agendas. The main power that matter is Germany, but there is a possibility for a coalition of a mixed majority of other top 6 countries to outweigh their decisions both vote-wise and politically).

</comment><comment><USER9> If you want to truly understand the difference. You'll have to travel far back in history.

America did not exist yet and Europe was a poor place. India and China were rich and had a huge trade surplus, they were getting richer and Europe was getting poorer. And they were not interested in invading other countries.

Europeans invaded and robbed India and Africa from where they got most of their wealth.

This wealth helped Europe industrialize.

During this time someone looking to travel to India accidentally discovered America.

I'll leave rest on you to research.

Fast forward today, American companies (facebook, google) have succeeded in extracting huge value from the European continent. Partly due to their economic policies and immigration of talented labor from other countries.

Europeans do not welcome immigration, considering the fact they are the nations who've robbed developing nations.

And Europeans do not like it because they've rapidly aging population, they are not in a position to compete with America and rising nations (India/China etc...)

Europe is now in wealth preservation mode. They want to stop wealth from leaving their shores.

As Europeans come together to protect the wealth and they've somehow made a case for the welfare state.

Today, Europeans ride their moral high horse and advocate for high standards, but why should anyone give them any creditability when their roots are imperialism / plundering poor nations.

GDPR is yet another unreasonable and difficult to comply with policy coming out of Europe. It's their wealth preservation plan.

<comment><USER9> As a European, it might hurt your feelings but you should blame it on your ancestors.

Europeans have never been apologetic towards the nations they've robbed during Imperiasic Era.

Until they correct their mistake. Only nation who we should trust the ones who have never robbed other nations.

I would love to know how Europeans can defend their actions of past.

<comment><USER10> Quite funny: you're more describing the US than Europe. Maybe because you're only interested by US and not by Europe..? ;-)

<comment><USER9> No, I am describing Europe only.

Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations of South Asia and Africa.

Winners write history, but still, it's damn too hard to make elephant in the room disappear.

<comment><USER11> > Europe got its most of the pre-industrial era wealth from plundering nations > of South Asia and Africa.

Do you have some data to back it up? Because there are some quite prominent examples that seem to contradict this claim. Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe.

<comment><USER9> If Poland did perfect industrial processes where did it got the natural resources from if not from rest of Europe which were brought into Europe through imperialism? Becoming an Industrial power is not possible without importing resources.

>> Take Poland, which was one of the major powers of the pre-industrial Europe (around XV-XVII centuries), and which never ventured outside Europe.

It seems to support my claim perfectly. Poland was only able to become a major power because it did not have an excess of those resources, partly because it did not venture outside Europe. It had no option but to polish its industrial strength in order to compete with rest of Europe.

There was literally no incentive for other European countries of that time to become a major industrial power, they were awash with wealth and resources.

<comment><USER11> Poland was a major player in the pre-industrial era (the period that you referred to in your original comment, I am not saying anything about the industrialization period). It accomplished it without any ventures to Asia or Africa. Your original claim still looks invalid to me.

<comment><USER9> Polish per capita GDP that the county already lagged behind Western Europe in economic development at the end of the Middle Ages

Polish living standards in the sixteenth century were below those of Italy and The Netherlands but on par with those of England. The author demonstrated that the Polish series began to also lag behind the English values in the seventeenth century due to growth in the latter series. According to a study of GDP made by Wójtowicz and Wójtowicz (2009), people living in Poland enjoyed only around 70 % of the goods and services available to the inhabitants of Western Europe in the sixteenth century. This value declined to around 40 % in the late eighteenth century

source: [https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-016-0154-5](https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11698-016-0154-5)

<comment><USER11> Interesting. Do you have data on the various Germanic states from that period? As far as I know, they've only joined the colonization/exploitation game in the late XIX century, and yet I think they did ok before that?</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Tech firms aren't biggest users of H-1B visas - <AUTHOR> https://www.axios.com/tech-firms-arent-biggest-filers-of-visa-applications-2226392488.html <comment><USER2> A dishonest analysis: There are more tech firms than Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple.

> Thousands of other companies accounted for the remaining 557,062 labor > filings.

And most of them are IT firms.</comment>


From itch to scratched: Google Hangout permalink - <AUTHOR> http://blog.singly.com/2012/07/09/from-itch-to-scratched-google-hangout-permalink/

<comment><USER2> Holy wow, I was dying for something like this just last week. My far-dispersed friends and I usually hang out on Ventrilo, which has no support for echo cancellation. Even Mumble's echo cancellation is insufficient for our needs. For some reason, Google+ Hangouts have the best echo cancellation of _any_ product I have ever seen. I'm really dying to know how they do it.

</comment><comment><USER3> Pretty strange that this needs to have a workaround, though, as this would make hangouts much easier to join and get people into G+ as a whole. And if the workaround is this easy, it can't be that hard for Google to incorporate this as a legitimate feature.

<comment><USER4> it was a feature and I planned to use it in some way, didn't even know it was gone... did not understand where did this come from</comment></comment>


The problem with superlatives in the history of science - <AUTHOR> https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2017/04/27/the-problem-with-superlatives/ <comment><USER2> Not a worthwhile article. Complains that it's unfair to call anyone "arguably the greatest" at something (Einstein for physics) because the author prefers unconventional choices (Kepler), that history of physics is dominated by history of mathematical physics, that the philosophy of science is dominated by the philosophy of physics, and that even having the discussion perpetuates the myth of the lone genius. He doesn't actually argue for or against these, just bemoans them.

<comment> charles-salvia The "lone genius" is somewhat of a myth, but also has a certain amount of truth to it. For example, Einstein was certainly a lot smarter than the average person - indeed, probably a lot smarter than most highly-accomplished scientists and engineers. However, he also was at the right place at the right time, and would never have come up with General Relativity had it not been for the work of his predecessors, such as, e.g., Riemann, who enabled Einstein to think of space-time in non-Euclidean terms, etc.

I think the biggest problem with the "lone genius" mentality is that it encourages the popular notion that "if it wasn't for Einstein, we'd never have General Relativity." But of course, this is most certainly false. If Einstein never existed, someone else would have eventually noticed problems with Newtonian mechanics over large distances, and ultimately applied Reimannian geometry to spacetime as a solution. It may have happened years or decades later, but overall scientific progress is very rarely strictly dependent on one individual.

<comment><USER3> > It may have happened years or decades later, but overall scientific progress > is very rarely strictly dependent on one individual.

Which brings up an interesting question. What is the most "far out" discovery that someone has made? In other words, had that person not thought of it, what idea would take the longest amount of time for someone else to arrive at? My bet is on Godel's incompleteness theorems, but I may be missing something even more bizarre. (I don't necessarily mean _obscure_ though; inter-universal Teichmüller theory might take forever to reach independent reinvention but it's also very niche.)

<comment><USER4> I doubt that Godel was indispensable for the discovery of the incompleteness theorem. It was one of Hilbert's problems so clearly people were thinking about it. Moreover, a few years later Turing came up with his notion of computability from which Godel's incompleteness their can be easily deduced.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Apple's New Keyboards Also Still Plagued with Issues (2019) [video] - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QDsqWkUvXQ <comment><USER2> Thought experiment: imagine installing Windows 10 on your newly acquired Mac Book Pro. Now you have spent a _minimum_ of 1500€ for barely functional hardware and half-asses software designed for tablets with build-in ads. The state of available pro laptop is saddening these days.

<comment><USER3> Pro laptops outside of the Apple ecosystem seem better than ever. I hear good things about the latest Lenovo, Dell, Huawei, and Microsoft Surface products. As long as you're willing to spend $1,000+, you're getting a great system.

<comment> cbm-vic-20 After hoping that Apple would get its act together for a couple of years, and eventually experiencing a hardware failure, I moved from a 2011 MacBook Pro to a 2018 Dell XPS 13, and I couldn't be happier. This is a great little machine: plenty of ports, thin, good battery life, and Windows 10 is leaps-and-bounds better than previous versions of Windows.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Time to call the experts!

[https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeee...](https://github.com/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee)</comment>


New Bridgestone website: HTML5, responsive design, etc - <AUTHOR> http://www.bridgestonetire.com

<comment><AUTHOR> I wasn't involved with this, but wanted to share.

Alongside the new Microsoft.com, it's great to have another big name site that's built on responsive design principles, for when people ask if anyone is actually using it.

</comment><comment><USER2> Site looks very good, needs some responsive action though.</comment>


Eskil Steenberg's MMO 'Love' now free - <AUTHOR> http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html I don't know how I missed this.  This happened on Sep 7 2012. https://twitter.com/quelsolaar/status/244121284097761280 <comment><USER2> I remember paying for a month of this a 4 or 5 years ago just to see what it was about. It seemed novel and fun, but my computer didn't run it very well, and my biggest complaint is that the graphical style made it hard to distinguish the edges of anything (and thus figure out what was going on). I'm excited to give it another go and see how far it's come.</comment>


UK Hosting Provider 123-Reg Accidentally Deletes Customer Sites - <AUTHOR> https://docs.google.com/document/d/14u_BbJYaVe9e7buVoSx5CU_gy-X-ZjHvi6Lp9lJHnQQ/edit <comment><USER2> > I understand that some customers may have lost some confidence in the > service that we offer

Only "some"...

> So, I want to explain ...

Just an explanation? No refunds?

> A new platform will be available by the end of the year for customers which > we will provide self-managed and automated snapshot backups

That's great, it will really solve my problem

> I hope this goes some way to win back your confidence.

"some way", for a very small "some"</comment>


Ask HN: Should usernames have a minimum length? - <AUTHOR>

Some sites don't allow users to select usernames less than 5 or 6 characters in length.  Is there a good reason for this? <comment><USER2> The minimum length should be 1. Usernames with less characters pose implementation problems.

</comment><comment><USER3> The only reason I know of is to make usernames as distinct as possible instead of user 'A' through 'Z' and then 'AB' through ZZ'. but yeah, 2 chars should be good enough. I dislike when i have to choose names like b0oooo or b0oooooooo just b/c i can't have b0o.

</comment><comment><USER4> I would at least make it a minimum of 2 or 3 characters. Perhaps only to promote recognizable or comprehensible user names.

<comment><USER5> 2 or 3 char names are great in my opinion. Think about how recognizable pg is around here.</comment></comment>


An Architect Squeezes 24 Rooms Into 344 Square Feet (Video) - <AUTHOR> http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/03/an-architect-squeezes-24-rooms-into-344-square-feet-video/72775/

<comment><USER2> Why do reporters constantly feel compelled to use the words "green" and "eco" in every situation they can? This has absolutely nothing to do with ecology, it's simply about optimizing space usage in a city where space is extremely expensive. I guess talking about green stuff sells more.

<comment><USER3> This is a very good example of "eco-friendly", and the word "green" was never used.

It is eco-friendly for various reasons. Two major ones are:

\- The lighting is mostly natural, so there is less energy use \- The space required per person, and thus the associated materials, is significantly less than a typical US living space. Further, less space means less heating/cooling requirements.

<comment><USER2> > the word "green" was never used.

\- The title of the video is "The World's _Greenest_ Homes"

\- [...] is what shaped architect Gary Chang's _green_ philosophy [...]

People in Hong Kong don't live in tight spaces because they are green but because space is very expensive.

<comment><USER3> Upvote to you. I'd downvote myself if I could. My bad. I was going off of the video only....

Yes, this isn't by choice, but lack of choice doesn't mean that it is not eco friendly.

<comment><USER2> Right. The result is in fact probably eco-friendly :) What annoys me a bit is I feel we are trying to force the "eco-friendly" virtue a bit too much on people who are doing nothing more than pursue their own self-interest (which I believe is perfectly fine and desirable).

<comment><USER4> Isn't eco-friendly also in our own self-interest? ;)

<comment><USER2> Yes it is. That's all the beauty of capitalism :)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> this is a great inspirational hack because:

1.) it scratches an important personal itch (having to live his whole life in a crowded urban apartment)

2.) it demonstrates resourcefulness and ingenuity given the (literal!) constraints

3.) the lessons he learned from hacking his own apartment could be used to improve urban living spaces in general

this is a reminder that hacks don't necessarily need to be hosted on github ;)

</comment><comment><USER6> He should get rid of those CDs so he can have another six rooms.

</comment><comment><USER7> A stumbling block: effectiveness decreases as the number of concurrent occupants increases

</comment><comment><USER8> This is something like 2-3 years old.

<comment><USER9> It's also a dupe. I've seen this video on HN at least two times previously.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Cool idea, but unless there is some system to lock the walls into place, this would be very dangerous in an earthquake. I've seen a number of high density file systems (same idea but just files) that caused significant safety issues in the recent Christchurch Earthquake.

<comment><USER11> AFAIK, Hong Kong is a fairly safe place earthquake wise. The main natural danger there is the typhoons.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Well... This is quite cool for 1 person, but how about if a family would live in that kind of apartment? You're watching TV and suddenly your kid has to go to the bathroom..

</comment><comment><USER13> I wonder what this guy could have gotten had he taken all the money he spent on his high tech setup and just bought a bigger, nicer apartment.

<comment><USER14> Look at this with more of a hacker spirit: experimentation is not a waste of money, but important for discovering new ideas that can further the state of the art.

Building/construction is a sector that has been stuck innovation-wise for a very long time. Or at least goes very slow compared to other areas of tech.

It might be one step along to programmable, self-reconfiguring houses of the future.

<comment><USER15> If you a interested in self-reconfiguring houses and furniture check out this Swiss research <http://biorob.epfl.ch/page-36376.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> There's something wrong about doing all that around complete poverty. How much did he spend creating it?

No family could live like that, everyone would need a different mode.

I live in 400 square feet, can't imagine a family living here, it would be rough.

<comment><USER17> Now having one of those for each family member would be friggin cool. My kids would love it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Although it would decrease the "greenness" of the home, I can imagine that making the walls motor-powered would make room switching easier. You could integrate a master controller into the wall with options for which room you want to switch to.

</comment><comment><USER19> did anyone else read this and think that there were going to be 24 actual rooms you could physically walk into at 1 time?</comment>


World record: P85D driving 728.7 km, 452.8 mi on a single charge - <AUTHOR> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5W4LJ5zL9g&feature=youtu.be <comment><USER2> My buddy did 438 in his P85. If he had the P85D I bet he could have hit 500 easy.

<comment><USER3> Not sure he could. The P85D has a lower reported range than the P85 (270 miles on the P85 and 253 miles on the P85D).</comment></comment>


Show HN: synchronize saved HN stories with Pinboard - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/koevet/HackerNewsToPinboard

<comment><USER2> Well this is a little embarrassing: How does one 'save' stories on HN?

Also it looks like you hardcoded your personal HN saved page url into the script.

<comment><USER3> You save a story by upvoting it. You can access your list of saved stories by clicking on your user name while logged in, then going to "saved stories"

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Well, what about synchronizing with the local bookmarks manager?</comment>


Ask HN: How can I learn to present my data effectively? - <AUTHOR> I am a data analyst and suffer from producing overly-complicated data visualizations and presentations[1].
Topics: criminal justice
Software: [R, ggplot2], [python 3, pandas]
Are there any online courses or Washington DC Metro Area in-person classes that could teach me how to prepare [for] effective data presentations?
[1] PowerPoint :( <comment><USER2> Read Tufte's books. Huge amount of good advice for presenting complex data.</comment>


The Common Thread: Fuzzing, Bug Triage, and Attacker Automation - <AUTHOR> http://cybersecpolitics.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-common-thread-fuzzing-bug-triage.html <comment><USER2> I've had very good experiences with AFL on a medium sized C++ code base. I ran it for 8 CPU months on the code base and was reasonably confident with the results. It generates samples for you, making the bugs easy to reproduce. Along with valgrind, most ended up being reasonably shallow - lots of out of bounds, uninitialized use, use after free, and incorrectly handles return codes from 3ᴿᴰ party libraries.

I recall getting false positives around hangs, but replaying all the generated test files made that easy to confirm.

Fortunately, the code base I was testing had an extensive set of input files for testing already.

<comment><USER2> As a quick follow up, one of the things I found surprising were that some of these bugs could have resulted in DOS for some significantly important systems, and that the code was written by some of the smartest people I have ever worked with. If these people were unable to write secure C++, it really made me question whether anyone could reliably do it in a business environment.

<comment><USER3> I think good code and a business environment just don't go hand-in-hand. I work for a company where one of our core values is writing clean code. We have fired clients who compromise too much on quality.

But despite this, corners are always cut when there's an arbitrary deadline; and in enterprise, there is always an arbitrary deadline.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The middle part of this post is concerned with the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge, which was a contest in which CGC generated dozens of small broken C programs that did network I/O, and contestants had to use fully automated systems to find vulnerabilities in them.

The through-line on this Dave Aitel post is that despite a decade of effort on high-level CS approaches to finding bugs, like lifting binaries to predicate expressions and running solvers on them, most bugs are still found by something not much more sophisticated than "cat /dev/urandom | program".

<comment><USER5> that kind of reduction is frustrating because not all bugs are equal. are all bugs found by fuzzing? does the value of the bugs found by means other than fuzzing outweigh the resources spent to find them?

<comment><USER4> That's what Aitel is questioning.

<comment><USER5> then he should run some numbers or make an argument that takes a position?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Skype Can Now Blur Background So You Don't Have to Frantically Tidy Your Room - <AUTHOR> https://gizmodo.com/skype-can-now-blur-your-background-so-you-dont-have-to-1832408791 <comment><USER2> Oh for the days when you didn't have to even begin to think about how untidy (or uncool) your apartment looked (or how untidy or uncool _you_ looked) every damn time you picked up a... "call".</comment>


Inky: Secure Email Made Easy - <AUTHOR> http://inky.com/ <comment><USER2> Zurb has already an email framework called Inky, it's confusing

<comment><USER3> Inky (mail) is older than Zurb's.</comment></comment>


Microsoft Teams gets a free version - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/12/microsoft-teams-gets-a-free-version/ <comment><USER2> > Once they've download teams, workplaces will be hooked into the Microsoft > 365 suite.

One of my absolute favourite comments ever on HN was by basch in 2017-04-20:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14160809](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14160809)

It's a beautiful, heartfelt, almost entirely lowercase, description of the state of affairs of Microsoft's 'naming of things' (remember, there's only two hard things in computer science).

This year I've had to fully (re)embrace the challenges of Microsoft's (re)naming, (re)branding, and (re)invigorating of some of their old products. Oh my.

<comment><USER3> Oof, too real. I'm still struggling to understand the difference between onedrive and sharepoint, after getting documents shared to me from them for the past year or more.

<comment><USER4> OneDrive - a client and an api. Decendent from Windows Live Mesh, and tacked ontop of Document Libraries. OneDrive is how you either access or sync documents to your client device. On Windows its a system tray sync agent that adds virtual folders to File Explorer. On Mobile its an App. In Desktop Outlook its a Button that exposes content available to you from SharePoint. In a web browser it is a javascript based web client for accessing stored files (like Google Docs.) ((tangent, google docs/maps gets credit for this, but microsoft invented XMLHttpRequest and reloadless pages for OWA.))

SharePoint - a server. SharePoint lets people make Team Sites, little sub instances of SharePoint. Team Sites have different types of sub-modules. One is called a Document Library. Document Libraries hold files and folders, but also have version control (you can see any iteration of any file ever.) By Default, each Office 365 Group has a Document Library called either "Documents" or "Shared Documents" depending on how the client renders the name. If Microsoft had a modicum of respect for the english language, they would rename "the 'Shared%20Documents' Office 365 SharePoint Team Site Document Library" to be called a Group OneDrive. Other major Office 365 Components stored on SharePoint include OneNote and Planner. (exception to this rule, the SharePoint iOS client. This product has no reason for existing, all its features should be a part of iOS OneDrive. Unless SharePoint=Intranet, OneDrive=DocumentLibrary, in which case file access should be stripped from iOS SharePoint.)

The line blurs when you have a 365 Group Document Library. On the web, accessing it calls it part of SharePoint, in Windows accessing it appears to be through OneDrive. If you can remember that OneDrive is one of many ways to access a SharePoint Document Library, analogous to Chrome is how you get to Google, you should be good.

Teams - a web app that replaces Skype and OneDrive. It embeds a SharePoint (Word Online, Excel Online) iframe, anytime you click a file stored in a Document Library. No Syncing, all streaming.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> One of the biggest frustrations I've had after switching from Slack -> Teams is the lack of support for syntax highlighting or 'code snippets.' Also, I can search for past comments, etc.. but for some reason it doesn't take you back in time to view the context around them - it only shows you the exact search result.

<comment><USER6> If you use web client then it takes you back in time. It's the limitation of the desktop client for some reason.

<comment><USER5> Interesting - thanks for the heads up.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> But still no Linux version unfortunately, despite it being the #4 most requested feature ([https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft- Teams/Nativ...](https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams/Native- Linux-client/m-p/30124#M973)). This is hugely painful for my organization, were a significant number of the devs use Linux. The IM feature works fine on the web, but audio only works under specific circumstances, and screen sharing doesn't work at all, effectively excluding these users.

<comment><USER8> You could try something like this in the meantime:

[https://rambox.pro/](https://rambox.pro/) [https://meetfranz.com/](https://meetfranz.com/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> If only it had custom emojis... It's the one thing keeping us on Slack.

<comment><USER9> Getting Downvotes here, but I wonder, aren't custom emojis important to anyones communication culture out there? We use them to signify specific states of acceptance for MRs for instance among other things.

<comment><USER10> The question is: are you getting the down-votes for wanting emoji, or for the suggestion that you might want to move away from Slack?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This seems like a poorly chosen headline from TechCrunch. Not being someone who keeps up with Microsoft chat programs, on first reading it I though "Teams at Microsoft get a free version of _what_?"

<comment><USER12> Teams is a Slack competitor, where cat gifs don't seem as cool, for some reason.</comment></comment>


Raspberry Pi 3B+ Specs and Benchmarks – The MagPi MagazineThe MagPi Magazine - <AUTHOR> https://www.raspberrypi.org/magpi/raspberry-pi-specs-benchmarks/ <comment><USER2> Hope to see some improvements for the A+ in the future either. There are not many low power alternative to it right now (the zero would be but too scarce right now). Out of the box a pi 3 is roughly sucks 300/400 mA whereas the A+ is arount 100 and 50/60 can be achieved by tweaking it.</comment>